Sexual knowledge of Canadian adolescents after completion of high school sexual education requirements

Abstract

bACKgRouNd: Formal sexual education is a mandatory component of the high school curriculum in most Canadian provinces. The present study was a preliminary assessment of sexual knowledge among a sample of Ontario adolescents who had completed their high school sexual education requirements. MeTHodS: A questionnaire, testing understanding of the learning objectives of Ontario's minimally required high school sexual education course, was distributed in a paediatric emergency department to 200 adolescent patients who had completed the course. ReSuLTS: Respondents demonstrated good understanding of pregnancy physiology and sexually transmitted infections, but poor understanding of concepts related to reproductive physiology, contraception, HIV/AIDS and sexual assault. Most respondents could not identify Canada's age of sexual consent. CoNCLuSioNS: Respondents demonstrated concerning gaps in sexual knowledge despite completion of their sexual education requirements. Further studies must determine whether a representative, population-based student sample would exhibit similar findings. Sexual education currently offered in Ontario may require investigation.

Indigenous Peoples’ Experience and Understanding of Menstrual and Gynecological Health in Australia, Canada and New Zealand: A Scoping Review

“…Much of the research on menstrual health literacy in LMICs has identified an overall fundamental lack of general knowledge about menstruation and what is considered “normal” [ 59 ]. Our review found that despite residing in HICs, where sexual health education is widely available in schools [ 10 , 60 , 61 ] and where discussion of menstruation is expected to be less taboo [ 21 ], there was little to no representation in the literature for Indigenous peoples and their experiences of menstrual and gynecological health. The paucity of research evidence is disproportionate to the scale of the issues associated with menstrual health, education, and gynecological disorders and their management [ 3 ]—and small in comparison to the volume of evidence for the non-Indigenous community [ 5 , 61 ].…”

Let’s talk about sexual health education: Youth perspectives on their learning experiences in Canada

“…Given relatively few studies with Canadian youth samples (e.g., Causarano et al, 2010;Kumar et al, 2013;Narushima et al, 2020), this study intentionally involved a diverse sample of youth (ages 12-19) living across Canada to hear their direct perspectives on sexual health education. While many important studies have relied on the opinions of parents ( e.g., McKay et al, 2014;Weaver et al, 2002) or retrospective insights of university students ( e.g., Charest et al, 2016;Byers et al, 2017, Levin & Hammock, 2020, findings from this study offer unique understandings based on the immediate or recent sexual health education experiences of Canadian youth.…”

“…Signifi cant effort has been put towards understanding youth preferences with respect to how sexual health education is deliv ered in Canada. Many researchers have found that youth perceive schools as an accessible, valuable, and primary sexual health in formation source (Byers et al, 2003;Charest et al, 2016;Kumar et al, 2013;Foster et al, 2011;Frappier et al, 2008). Researchers (Flicker et al, 2009) reported that just over half of youth partic ipants (ages 13-18) would prefer to get answers to their sexual health questions from a health professional.…”

Training needs in dating violence prevention among school staff in Québec, Canada

“…In reintroducing SHE, it was made mandatory in high schools, including the addressing of positive intimate relationships and DV (Gouvernement du Québec, 2018). Although there is mandatory content to be integrated into the school curriculum, topics such as DV are still sensitive topics and unfrequently discussed in educational settings (Kumar et al, 2013;MacAulay et al, 2022). However, intimate relationships represent one of the topics youth are most interested in discussing (Narushima et al, 2020;Astle et al, 2021).…”